A New
FEATURE
Generation
Colorado Mountain College’s
Ski Area Operations program
By Jim Chliboyko
If you’re offering a two-year course
to teach people how run a ski hill, it
might as well be taught in Colorado.
The state is the site of the tallest
of the Rocky Mountains (Mount Elbert),
it’s the only state that is over a
half-mile above sea level (in its entirety)
and it’s the home of 53 of the Rocky
Mountains’ 14,000 footers. For added
color, Colorado Mountain College’s
(CMC) Ski Area Operations (SAO)
program is run out of Leadville, the
highest incorporated city in the United
States. Leadville is surrounded by
huge opportunity for any SAO student,
in the form of many skiing facilities.
“We’re pretty spoilt that way,” said
Cooper Mallozzi, dean, School of
Hospitality, Tourism and Recreation
at CMC, a portfolio which includes
the college’s Ski Area Operations program.
“Leadville itself isn’t home to a
four-star resort. We have Ski Cooper
here, which is a fantastic mom-andpop
style area where you can park and
walk to the base area, (something)
which doesn’t really exist anymore….
That’s a good training resource, we
partner with them, the students are
out there grooming every Thursday
and/or Friday night, assuming there’s
enough snow.
“But then, yes, we have Copper and
Vail and A-Basin (Arapahoe Basin)
and Breck (Breckenridge) and Loveland
and Beaver Creek – there’s a
whole slew of them. So, yeah, we have
quite a playground. And then we’re
fortunate, too, to have the tubing hill
and the ski team’s training slope right
here behind campus.”
The college has cornered the market
for this type of offering, at least in the
Western U.S. The Ski Area Operations
program has been taught, in one form
or another, for at least 40 years, says
Mallozzi; the only other similar course
in the States is thought to be one offered
through Michigan’s Gobegic
Community College.
Students are enrolled in a two-year
program which runs from September
to early May, instructing them on all
aspects of operating a hill, from snowmaking
to vehicle maintenance to risk
management and patrol to ski area
design, grooming and management.
There can be about 15 to 25 students
per class, taught by two main instructors
and a “handful of adjuncts” who
teach the specialty subjects. CMC
is an open enrollment college, so
there is no standardized testing or
arduous application process and the
school is very affordable, even for
out-of-state students.
“CMC offers a tremendous amount
of scholarships,” said second-year SAO
student Maddy Pierce. “I pay out-ofstate
tuition, so it’s a little more expensive.
If you’re paying in-state, it pretty
much costs nothing… there are so
many scholarships that CMC offered
snowopsmag.com | SnowOps 23
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